Home
by happychaos
Summary: Kim wants to see Edward one last time before she dies, but Death is close behind when she starts her final journey to the mansion...


Home  
  
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hello! Thanks for opening the story, that means you were a leetle teeny bit interested, right? This fic takes place six or seven years after the movie ends. Please read and review, it only takes a minute and it really means so much to me! Danke! Now, on with the show! Disclaimer: Edward or Kim don't belong to me. They are the property of God- I mean, Tim Burton.and other companies with complicated rights issues that I don't understand. I'm just borrowing them for a little while, so I can try to make things a little happier in the world  
  
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She knew it was stupid; knew it was childish. But she didn't care. That was a lie, she cared very much. But she was a human, and humans are ruled by their impulses, not by rationality. It was what made them human.  
  
She was old now, too old to be out walking in the cold. Almost too old to be walking at all. It was stupid, really. Childish.  
  
But oh, she so wanted to see him again before she died. And it would be very soon, now, she could tell. She could feel William tugging at her, her dear strong William with messy black hair and the soft, lilting voice. She had met him six years after Edward and fallen in love with his songs, and then the man behind them. He had been so different than all her other boyfriends. He had been like Edward, and she had loved him for it, and then, as the years and babies came, she loved him for him. But William had been dead for six years, now, and she could hear his musical voice whispering in her ear, his ghost cold hands comforting her, telling her not to be afraid.  
  
Soon, she told him, soon. I just have one more thing I need to do. Then we can be together. Her wedding ring slipped off her finger; fell in the snow.  
  
She was at the bottom of the mountain, now, and could just make out the mansion on the top. It was so black against the snow, and so high. She didn't think she could do it. But she had to try, she had to see him one last time.  
  
Kim struggled up the steep drive way, taking tiny steps too big for old and tired feet. To keep her mind off the cold, she sang to herself. That soon proved too much for her lungs, and so she lapsed into her own thoughts.  
  
Thinking back on her youth, she always divided her life into two parts. There was BeforeEdward, where she had been heartless and innocent and gay; a child who's only selfish desires were her own. And then, oh, then there was AfterEdward, after the boy with the childlike face and the destructive hands had come into her life and changed her so completely. After she had felt real love, regardless of social barriers, expectations, her own insecurities and doubts. That had been a beautiful period, full of pain and change and wonder. That had been her flower of youth. The afterglow of falling in love, even for so brief a time, had stayed with her until the first gray hairs came in. Edward had lead her to William; for that she was ever grateful.  
  
She thought of her lovely granddaughter, who had so recently found her own Edward. She was only sixteen, but Kim of all people knew true love when she saw it. His name was Chris, and he looked people straight in the eyes and ducked his head only when speaking to ladies, all of whom he addressed as ma'am, a trait Kim found endearing. He was the sort of boy who held doors open and helped with the dishes without being asked. She was happy for her granddaughter. Kim leaned against a twisted tree trunk. She was nearly there, but oh, her legs were so tired. Not even just her legs. Her bones, her muscles, her skin, her lungs, her heart. She was exhausted, through and through. She gasped for air, catching her breath.  
  
"Oh, Edward," she breathed. "I'm sorry. I did so want to see you again." Something changed in the way she was standing, her eyes went strangely bright, and her spine straightened. "William! Oh William I am coming!" And Kim died, her tired, used body sagging against the tree.  
  
There were two of her now, and both were dancing in the snow, twirling around each other, feeling only a slow, warm joy and not a bit of the frigid cold. One was the young and lovely Kim, Edward's Kim. The other was older, wiser, sadder, but even more beautiful. A Kim that had known the pain of loss and the joy of discovery. William's Kim. Kim the woman, as she had lived. They knew each other and laughed, rushing into the other's arms, bare feet making no imprint on the snow. They were crying and laughing and twirling and dancing- never for a moment letting go of the other, because they were one in the same, they were both Kim and as she had loved herself, they loved each other.  
  
"You are so beautiful. I had forgotten." The older Kim said, although she herself was only thirty, the year she and William had married. Younger Kim only smiled, and her face lit up more beautifully than it ever had during her life. Older Kim leaned forward, her hands on the other's shoulders.  
  
"You can fix it, now. You can make it right." Young Kim nodded, she understood. She wanted to fix things, make it right. They way things could- should, have been.  
  
Gleaming, a beautiful young man with tousled black hair and glittering honey eyes stepped forward and wrapped an arm around the older Kim's waist.  
  
"William!" she cried, and buried her face in his chest, breathing him in. This was him in his prime, not as she had last seen him, old and gray and depended on that machine for his oxygen. He hadn't been able to sing, then, and Kim was sure that had been what killed him, more than the cancer. He held her tight and Kim felt like she was going home.  
  
"I have to go, now" she whispered to younger Kim, who was herself but herself before life had really happened. But part of her nonetheless. She turned from William and hugged the younger Kim, the girl whom Edward had loved, the girl Edward had been loved by. Tears filled older Kim's eyes. She was leaving a part of herself here with Edward. But a part of herself always had been with Edward, it was only right to do this now. One last embrace from her and William, for he had recognized the young girl, of course, and they hastily bumped cheekbones, kissing each other.  
  
"Good-bye, good-bye! I hope it all comes out right!" And William took his Kim in his arms and kissed her, and younger Kim had to hide her eyes because they became so bright, but then they were gone.  
  
Kim went to make things right.  
  
She had died nearly at the top of the mountain, indeed she could see her old body, now being blanketed in snow. She blew a fond kiss at it, before continuing her way to Edward.  
  
She glided across the snow like a breeze, and before she realized it, she was at the door. She took a deep breath. Her hand trembled at the handle. What if he couldn't see her? What if he didn't want to see her? What if he was dead- or worse, what if he had, like a machine, simply broken one day and never been repaired? Like a toaster that needed to be thrown out. She shuddered and expelled the thought from her mind. Edward had a soul. She had loved it.  
  
She opened the door.  
  
She glided across the dusty floor, not daring to call his name, too full of joy and dread and hope and longing to even speak. She had been given this chance. She was a spirit of nerves, like a jangling charm bracelet. She hugged herself. She floated through the ceiling, through all the rooms full of contraptions she never could have hoped to understand in her previous nut shell life- but now, with all the time in the world, she knew she could come to comprehend them quite well.  
  
She found him on the top floor, and she wasn't surprised. There were countless ice sculptures there- of her family, children, dogs, cats, himself. But she noticed, the most beautiful, the most detailed, the ones most lovingly, tenderly sculpted- were all of her. She was his most common subject. She floated around and between them, copying the poses, lovingly touching the cheeks, wondering if she really were so beautiful. And then, there he was.  
  
Edward was working on a sculpture of her and him- that all too brief moment where he had held her in his arms. He looked exactly the same, as he had in real life, as he had in all her dreams and visions and hopes. Her heart went out to him, and she was filled to bursting with love. She swooped down to him, knocking him to the floor. She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek to his chest. He didn't move. She looked at him. His eyes were wide.  
  
"Kim?" he whispered, and in that one word there was such beauty and hope and disbelief that she cried and reached her arms toward him. His scissor hands twitched, the metal quietly clacking. They were longing to touch her. She grabbed one, and it didn't cut her, didn't hurt at all. Edward's eyes were wide and black.  
  
"It's me, Edward. I've come back. I had to." She smiled, and tears rolled down her cheeks, falling to the floor her feet didn't quite touch. Slowly, unsurely, as if it were for the first time in many, many years- Edward smiled.  
  
He clumsily opened his arms to her, flung them wide so she wouldn't hurt herself, even if she could.  
  
"Oh-" she gasped and threw herself to him, melding herself into every crevice and curve until one looking at them couldn't tell where the invention began and the ghostgirl ended.  
  
They were together at last and everything was all right.  
  
He pressed his mouth against her cheek timidly, his need and want and longing to touch her overcoming his usual reserve and shyness. She cupped his face with her ghost warm hands, brought his head to hers, and kissed him.  
  
It was like coming home. 


End file.
